


The Nearer Your Destination

by Silvergirl



Series: Drawn to Stars [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon compliant only through TLD, Established Relationship, Explicit but not going to list every sex act, Fanart, Honeymoon in Sicily, Honeymoon in Venice, Jealousy is a hard habit to kick, M/M, No plot beyond sex holiday and personal growth, POV Sherlock, Parentlock, Sherlock still has some growing up to do, TFP never happened, Wedding, and lots of talking, can requited love last?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26628604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvergirl/pseuds/Silvergirl
Summary: After a December wedding, Sherlock takes John to Venice for a February honeymoon. It's absolutely perfect, up until the moment he hears John growl, "What the hell isZanardidoing here?"
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Drawn to Stars [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585843
Comments: 309
Kudos: 181





	1. The Forgeries of Jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hadn’t realised or perhaps acknowledged it to myself, but women: they terrified me. They had a societally-dictated role, and consequently an expertise, in a set of expectations and behaviours that eluded me. The categories I did not shine in: charm. Social lubrication. Subtle flattery. Harmless flirtation. Not my area, any of it. John enjoyed the delicate dance; I hated it.

**2019**

Sometimes you think you’re on your glide path, and one abrupt event reveals you’re not. It might not be a dramatic or violent event, but the displacement it reveals _is_ momentous: _everything you thought is wrong_.

* * * * *

John and I had finally worked ourselves out.

We’d been together for three years, raising an indescribably interesting and lovable child. She shaped our days, of course, as children must; but early on we’d learned to make her schedule an enabling limitation, as it were, and her nap-times prolonged our period of mutual discovery until it was a fixed part of our lives. Though never—ever—a routine.

I walked away from one failed attempt at a romantic entanglement, and leaped straight (so to speak) into the one I wanted, had always wanted. Perhaps, in retrospect, that was precipitate. Perhaps we should have spent some time getting to know each other as romantic partners, at least, before moving in together. At the time, though, it was unthinkable. We’d already spent so long apart, missed out on so many years. It was clear this was our real destination: living together, preferably in Baker Street, overwriting a fraught past with a happy present: it never occurred to me, at least, to wait.

Oh, we spent a few nights in John’s guest room in Bromley, while his old room in 221b was made ready for Watson. But when we finally connected, in Bologna, both of us free at the same time for the first time, perhaps ever—we snapped together like a neodymium magnet, perfect fitted, powerfully attractant, absolutely unwavering. It was perfect.

For a long time, that is. There were ups and downs, of course. A clamorous argument the very month we moved in together, that I thought would break us. An episode or two of quite unjustified jealousy. The occasional fallout or backlash from John’s (I thought excessive) determination to probe every psychic wound he’d brought with him into our present. (He did therapy in earnest; I did not.) But for the most part, nothing above the trivial. We were solid. Until the day we weren’t.

In retrospect, again, I should have seen it coming. Not John’s behaviour—mine. I didn’t admit it even to myself, but the forgeries of jealousy were still with me. The disadvantage of loving a bisexual partner, I suppose: one has fully twice as many imaginary rivals. I hadn’t realised or perhaps acknowledged it to myself, but women: they terrified me.

I was confident I could outshine most of my own sex, if only because John had an idiosyncratic preference for those areas where I _did_ shine. But with women, I could not compete. John had spent his entire adult life fantasising about women, pursuing women, sleeping with women. They had an allure I could never match or generate.

But it wasn’t even so much the sexual issue. Women had a societally-dictated role, and consequently an expertise, in a set of expectations and behaviours that eluded me. The categories I did _not_ shine in: charm. Social lubrication. Subtle flattery. Harmless flirtation. Not my area, any of it. John enjoyed the delicate dance; I hated it. I’d overheard any number of examples of coquetry that got under my skin—though I never responded aloud, of course.

> _John, I just brought over some of Trixie’s favourite tops, she's outgrown them, but they’ve plenty of wear in them yet. And Rosie’s smaller, so._
> 
> **Florals: over my dead body.**
> 
> _What do you think I need to do about this, John?_ [Coyly showing an invisible bump on flawless skin.]
> 
> **He’s a surgeon, for God’s sake. Want a scar?**
> 
> _Oh, John, you’re_ such _a good father._
> 
> **Watson has two good fathers, thank you very much.**
> 
> _Could you give me that recipe Rosie was raving about? I’d love to try it._
> 
> **John can’t give you that recipe because he doesn’t know it. Watson and I invented it, together.**

I knew he loved me, down to the bone marrow—but I was waiting, unaware, for the other shoe to drop. Another Mary. A woman capable of seeing my ludicrous side, playing off it, and waving me effortlessly away with a pitying smile. And the moment—literally the _minute_ —I thought I saw that happening, I stepped back and pushed him away. That was half of the disaster waiting for us just off-stage.

* * * * *

The other half of the disaster was Watson. Or more accurately, John’s determined if unconscious monopoly on decisions about her well-being. That too was fine, until it wasn’t.

I had never expected to parent Watson, let alone to feel myself so much her father.

My feelings about her very complicated parents transferred to her the moment I took her, literally, from her mother, in a gesture Mary made of forced trust and ruthless conquest. My feelings about Mary were as complicated as her kaleidoscopic personality.

But the further I got from that period, the clearer it was that I had loved Mary in my way, for her lively intelligence and fast, pitiless humour (sheer narcissism on my part: they’re qualities I share). For the _almost_ kindly understanding with which she had gently, inexorably, taken John from me. Reminding me, without ever saying it, that I had discarded him first and broken him and could not repossess him now.

 _Oh, Sherlock. Neither of us were the first, you know_.

But mostly I had loved her for pulling John back from the brink, putting him back together. Even if she had created for him a new identity that had—quite rightly, I thought—no room in it for me. A family man, with a wife and daughter who would always, would have to, come first. And that identity would have lasted until the end of his life, had it not shattered with the end of hers.

By the time Mary’s past had come back to destroy her, I was hopelessly in love with Watson as well as with John. John, who was once again broken, his identity smashed by the people who loved him most. By our mistakes. By our hubris. And there was, I thought, to be no trusting me ever again. Not with his heart, even as a friend, and certainly not with his daughter’s life and safety.

* * * * *

**May 2015**

_Sherlock:_

_You have done everything you possibly could to ruin my life. You know you have. From the first day you latched on to me, God knows why. You only wanted to own me, to have a convenient subordinate, an audience, a live-in publicist and assistant and cook and translator and enabler and “conductor of light.” You never cared about what it was I needed, what I wanted. You isolated me from every person and every activity that could have inconvenienced you, and mocked me for wanting anything but you and The Work. And when you came back from your years of playing dead, you expected me to be pitifully grateful to see you alive, and go back to being your P.A. Mary kept that from happening, so you got her killed. I will_ _never_ _believe that was an unintended consequence, Sherlock. What do they say? A feature, not a bug._

_I shouldn’t ever have gone back to Baker Street. Not when you came back, not when she shot you, not at any time or for any reason. I don’t want to see you ever again. You’re toxic. You’re a menace to my daughter. Rosie’s all I’ve got left of Mary, and I don’t want you anywhere near her. Or me. Stay away. Don’t contact me. If I ever think I can manage any kind of interaction with you—I know where to find you. Until then, leave us alone. I fucking mean it._

* * * * *

We made our way out of that dark time, nonetheless. With the entirely unexpected help of a compelling rival for my “affections.” I haven’t said so to John—it would have been picking a pointless fight—but he would never have decided to choose me, to pursue me, to take me into his life and Watson’s, had it not been for Roberto Zanardi’s own pursuit. And after, my month in Rome had shown John two things: both that I could be a partner in all senses, and that I was not waiting, quiescent, for him to make a move.

Instead, _I’d_ made the move: I’d moved on, I’d moved to Italy. And when I’d returned with him to London it had been to a family pre-formed, a stable triad where there _was_ room for me—as John’s partner and as Watson’s undefined “Ba.”

I’d never expected to love Watson _for herself_. But I did. I do. Her little face, her expressions and gestures, her desires and demands, were a perfect blend of her multi-faceted parents. But as she grew, she also grew into herself, a new compound where neither Mary nor John dominated.

And how that child can love. She loves lavishly, with a passionate affection independent of advantage or return. She loves her aunts, her au pair, her fathers’ friends, her grandparents, her insufferable uncle, her Nana, with a fierceness that makes me dread the day that any one of them is lost to her. To say she loves her father is a bland understatement: no matter how happy and occupied she's been while he is operating, each time he comes home she is reborn.

And she loves me. Watson has given her entire self to loving, and in doing so has given me a corporeal channel of expression and experience that I lacked for all those dreary years when I merely suffered my body, or deprived it, or dominated it without kindness or appreciation. If I live in my body differently now, it’s not only because of her father; it’s also because of her little frame, both sturdy and vulnerable; her kinetic joy in running and splashing and jumping; her delight in becoming more adroit and accomplished as she learns.

When loving is a person’s defining characteristic, that can make them ... vulnerable. I tried to protect Watson by surrounding that focus with others: curiosity, reason, expression. Music, art, handwork, language (her French was precociously fluent). The scientific method, drawing, discovery—all in the guise of play, obviously. Perseverance and discipline we added in, one half-minute or minute at a time.

> _Viens, Sami, j’ai envie de faire une tarte aux pommes!_ She could always get Sami into the kitchen to perfect their apple tart recipe.
> 
> _Ba, when can I start playing on a real piano? This one doesn’t have any resonance._ She had a keen ear not only for what was audible, but for what was missing.
> 
> _Uncle My, Ba told me you’re a good amateur actor. Can you teach me?_ She pronounced “amateur” in French. Mycroft’s face: I've not seen anything like it since I was a child.
> 
> _This book is_ boring. _It’s only got baby words, and the plot is completely unrealistic._ John’s eyebrows shot up. _Well, it_ _**is**. Moronic. _John turned to glare at me, and I looked innocently up at the ceiling. 

I thought it was going perfectly. And then one day John said he wanted to send Watson to school a full year early. So that she would not be—of course he never said this, but I seemed to hear it like a siren—a Freak. And from the time he mentioned it, it wasn’t a proposition to discuss and consider and resolve together; it was a fait accompli. The school was chosen, the Open Day attended, the decision made while I was still reeling at the distrust revealed by both the impulse to send her away from my influence, and the autocratic decision that made it a settled thing.

It took only this, colliding with the very preliminary but very determined advances made by a very pretty teacher at what had become—overnight—Watson’s “new school,” to send me, us, into a crisis virtually out of nowhere. The closest we’ve ever come, from the night three years earlier when I rocketed into John’s arms in the Bologna train station, to walking away from each other.

I shut him out. Pre-emptively. I plunged back into working cases as though they were all that mattered, as though my puzzled little Watson didn’t matter, as though my visibly suffering but silent lover didn’t matter. As though I were a machine, bent on other journeys with other destinations. I slept in our bed but made sure never to touch him.

I spent a month not looking at John. Staring into the middle distance. I didn’t touch his phone for weeks after seeing that woman’s first message string. I didn’t want to _see_ the inevitable traces of a betrayal and its concealment: calls made late at night, texts deleted or preserved, forgotten receipts, an indiscreet photo on his phone. (A betrayal I decided on _for him_ , not even leaving him the freedom to choose with whom, and when, and why he would be unfaithful to me.)

So I deliberately blurred my mental focus. The most observant man in the world, he calls me, and I turned that faculty off. I saw only cases, and Watson. Watson, and cases. And I turned away from him.

Worse. I saw it hurt him, and I was childishly glad. If he was going to leave our home for a banal woman, I wanted him to hurt as much as I did.

I was, as John never hesitates to remind me, a drama queen. But it wasn’t a performance: it felt like dying. And more than most people, I know what dying feels like.

John, happily, is the opposite of a drama queen; he does drama only reluctantly, and under the gravest provocation. He made the first overture, and he responded to the only one of the two wounds I would confess to: “You don’t want her to grow up like me.”

He took me back to Bologna and said I wasn’t allowed to freeze and shut him out in silence. He required that I declare that we were finished, and why.

It was brave. From his perspective, for all he knew I had simply checked out. Decided that he, though not his daughter, was _boring_ , and returned to my solitary life as a solver of puzzles more interesting than himself. (As though such a thing could even exist.) Solemnly, and humbly, and simply, he stood there and asked me not to leave. To love him.

All the barriers I’d built back up, he pulverised, some of them very flamboyantly. He forced me to confess my secret terror, of his (non-existent) secret affair. He liquidated my imaginary rival with fortuitously preserved proof, and he didn’t mock me for theorising in advance of the data. I was humiliated anyway; my cheeks are still burning. 

He came to recognise his own unconscious possessiveness about Watson and her upbringing, and set to relinquishing his illusions of unitary prerogative.

He re-centred us in the landscape of our life with her and with everyone in it. He pushed back into my heart without fanfare; and he asked me, not for the first time, to marry him.

This ridiculous estrangement made me hesitate, for a bit. Extricating oneself from a marriage is more painful and soul-destroying than leaving a less publicly formalised commitment. But I didn’t hesitate for long. I didn’t _want_ to leave John and Watson. Our commitment could hardly be more public. And I didn’t intend to sabotage our life together by trying to leave some escape hatch discreetly open in the back. By every standard we value she is my daughter, and he is everything to me. So I said yes.

I always thought I was finished underestimating John Watson. Misunderstanding him. That I wouldn’t make this or that mistake again. I learned from each error, and _didn’t_ make the same mistake twice.

But occasionally, despite an uncommon intellect and acute observation, I still managed to find new ways to misread him, and new mistakes to make—though fortunately, not before the wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic will make soooooo much more sense if you've read the Drawn to Stars series, particularly the previous one, _Teach Your Children Well._
> 
> "The nearer your destination, the more you're slip-slidin' away." (Paul Simon)
> 
> "These are the forgeries of jealousy," _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , Act II, scene i, l. 81. Every chapter title comes from this magnificent speech, which details the comprehensive blight that Oberon's jealousy and Titania's resentment of it inflict on the land: "this same progeny of evils comes / From our debate, from our dissension; /  
> We are their parents and original." Titania's monologue inspired the fic and thus may be its decoder ring.
> 
> Blessings and thanks to Hubblegleeflower for betaing and 7PercentSolution for brit-picking. I am so grateful.


	2. The spring, the summer, the childing autumn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We pared our marriage ceremony down to the bare essentials.
> 
> The Registry office was already doing us a favour by giving us the last slot of the day, bumping us up in the queue; John was keen not to keep them later than necessary. No written vows then, thankfully. No music, no photo sessions; the photos of John’s first wedding were stored safely in an album for Watson to see, one day. I didn’t want a rival set.

**16–17 December 2019**

We pared our marriage ceremony down to the bare essentials.

The Registry office was already doing us a favour by giving us the last slot of the day, bumping us up in the queue; John was keen not to keep them later than necessary. No written vows then, thankfully. No music, no photo sessions; the photos of John’s first wedding were stored safely in an album for Watson to see, one day. I didn’t want a rival set.

Our guests trooped up the steps into the Registry office, taking up all the modest seating. Mummy and Daddy pinched Watson and flanked her, ignoring the visible dismay of Mycroft and Mrs Hudson. Luckily, Mummy and Mrs H were friendly rivals, more often accomplices. They’d joined forces to acquire Watson’s red velvet outfit, far too Christmas-elfish for an almost-five-year-old. Perhaps she’d outgrow it quickly. Or it could succumb to an unhappy accident. Such things did happen.

Harry and Clara I was particularly glad to see, Harry looking sharp in a clean-cut black suit with sleek trousers and an asymmetrical jawline haircut. Clara, by contrast, looked tender, in an elegant amber shift. If I’d done nothing else good in John’s life, I was gratified by how these two had come through. No merit of mine, of course; but definitely my impetus, so I allowed myself a moment to savour it. Harry would probably be surprised to know how grateful I was to have a sister to—not replace, but perhaps balance—the brother with whom my interactions were so uneven.

I felt ignobly glad that Mike Stamford had come, since he’d skipped John’s marriage to Mary. The memory of his refusal to attend was vivid: his expression kind and sad, his words awkward, staccato. “You know. I wish John all the best, but this. Well. This. Just—isn’t the best.”

So it felt _affirming_ to have Mike there. A confirmation that he approved of me as John’s spouse, and hadn’t, of Mary. But doubtless he just felt the same kind of proprietary interest I had in having set in motion the reunion of Harry and Clara. —Me. Playing matchmaker. Not what I ever expected of myself. Of course, it was a re-match, so it didn’t really count. In any case, I didn’t intend to make a habit of it.

But then again, perhaps love was in the air. It hadn’t escaped my notice that Molly had actually come with Lestrade. She’d brought boutonnières for us and insisted on pinning them on us herself. I think it was to show me, rather than tell, that her early doubts about John and me were definitively gone. She pinned the tiny white orchids on our lapels and kissed us both on the cheek, positively glowing. She sat with Lestrade, and there may have been no hand-holding, but there was also no daylight between the two of them. The skirt of Molly’s deep-green taffeta dress (for which I took entire credit, having chosen it for her) was practically flowing over Lestrade’s uncustomarily elegant charcoal-grey tweed trousers.

Standing up in front of our guests, I tried not to look at Watson. She was the one I thought would tip me over into an unseemly emotional display. Instead I glanced at my parents, both looking as proud as if I had brought peace on earth rather than merely striking it incredibly lucky in meeting John. (Having met him, falling in love with him was a foregone conclusion.) Mycroft too looked unwontedly mellow, somewhere between relieved and smug.

The others present I didn’t register as thoroughly; I was almost certain I remembered to greet them all, and said their names (John’s training). But if I hadn’t, I’d make it up to them later, at the flat. I was getting a bit nervous, glancing at my watch and wondering if John would call everyone to order.

In fact, it was me he was trying to call to order. John had said my name twice to get my attention, but it was his haircut that finally caught my eye. It made him look as boyish as when I’d met him nearly nine years earlier. We took our places in front of the clerk, who was warm without being unctuous, official but not officious. This was business as usual for her, though afterward she did whisper to John that she and her girlfriend were avid readers of his blog. As always, he looked surprised and pleased. He’s never gotten used to the fact that people love reading him.

I was annoyed to realise that I was actually a bit nervous. At what? There was nothing I was ambivalent about; my only task was to say “I do,” which didn’t seem beyond my powers; the pomp and circumstance of the event was non-existent. Doubtless some vestigial anxiety that I didn’t deserve this, that I was ridiculous to attempt it.

John put his hand on my right arm and barely squeezed. There’s something grounding about that. When you’re making your way over a barrier, a watercourse, sometimes just touching something else can restore focus and balance. It doesn’t have to be a massive tree or branch; sometimes a leaf is enough. Something about recentring visual data in the brain. John’s hand brought me back to rational calm. But I still can’t remember anything of the ceremony itself until he reached over to kiss me.

Amid the expected explosion of hugs and tears from my mother and Mrs Hudson, Mycroft absconded with Watson. The flurry of dressing for the December cold kept me from noticing Gavin holding everyone back from the door, forcing John and me to go first. We stepped out onto the steps to see a small crowd of thirty or forty people lining the staircase: to our left a large group of Met officers, to our right, a clutch of members of my homeless network.

Everyone smiling, and shouting, calling out, hooting, cheering. There was even confetti, though apparently that was a rash violation of The Rules. I was so taken aback—no, so _moved_ —that I had to turn and go back inside for a moment. John said it looked very ungracious. But I had no other choice. When I got myself under control and went out again, I saw two Sallies: Donovan with a large professional camera snapping away like a newspaper photographer, and Seven Dials Sal looking as stylish as she always did, homeless or not. Dimmock with his familiar stare of hero-worship, and Sam from Wapping Old Stairs playing quite well on that ridiculous concertina (the man’s a virtuoso on the accordion, but says it’s too heavy to haul around). For a moment I regretted our decision to have quite so restricted a guest list.

We stood there for what felt like a long time, smiling and waving (John was smiling, at least; I have no idea what my face was doing, it was not under my control). Donovan’s camera was practically strobing, and I wondered what kind of images she could possibly get in that combination of street lamps and flashbulbs. I thought we’d probably look like ghosts. At least I’d get to find out what my face _was_ up to when it was not answering to me.

Finally our cab rolled up and we were able to get down the stairs and away, having had to leave Watson with her tenacious uncle. We had just a few minutes to make sure everything was set up properly at the flat before everyone would descend on us.

* * * * *

The party was enjoyable, and having it on a Monday, with Watson at center-stage, meant that there was a natural early end to it. I noticed Molly taking discreet photos with her phone, which was fine; it looked more like a Christmas party than a wedding party. Even the cake was a Christmas cake: a recipe too sweet even for me, though Mycroft’s eyes gleamed when he saw it. We waved the last stragglers off before ten, and poured an exhausted daughter into bed, her dress sadly intact.

I’d a feeling John had something specific in mind to mark this night. Embarrassingly, I hoped it wasn’t anything too ambitious or ... novel. Between the organising, the socialising, the conversing, the hosting, the Watson-wrangling, the intense _feeling_ —I was close to drained. But I was hardly going to have the proverbial headache on this night of all nights.

Came into the bedroom freshly showered, to find him standing, still dressed, and staring at the framed photographs of us on the wall. Two re-writes, overwrites, of surveillance photos he’d seen showing me and Roberto together, almost four years ago now.

They’d haunted him until he confessed how they were eating away at him, and I’d made a Christmas project of restaging them: John in my place, and myself in Roberto’s. To replace them. Evict them. 

I moved in behind him, pressed up close and felt my cock stir at the touch of John’s arse. Pavlovian, I swear. He reached his left hand back round to stroke mine for a moment.

I studied the photos, which had become so familiar I didn’t really see them anymore. The church of St Stephen Walbrook: I remembered that moment, John standing on a low step staring up at the deep-sea light flooding in through the lantern in the dome. The deep coffering in the ceiling, the leafy capitals atop the columns. I wrapped my arms around him the same way now, just a bit more ... naked.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184881477@N07/50364854662/in/dateposted-public/)

In the other photo I was wrapped around John in bed, in a pose very familiar from post-coital bonding; I could feel his chest under my hand in the same way. We always fell asleep with my cheek on his shoulder—though I didn't stay there long enough to strain it.

He spoke. “Overwriting was one of your best ideas, you know.”

“Of course it was. I am a genius, after all.” I nuzzled his ear, lowered my arms to encircle his waist.

“Someday you’ll stop feeling the need to remind me.”

“Someday you’ll stop forgetting. Besides—force of habit.”

“Overwrite it.”

I laughed against his neck. John’s best lines are always succinct.

“I’ll try. No guarantees.”

“I gave it a try, too.” His voice was so carefully casual that I went still with suspicion.

“Pray tell.”

“I wrote you a letter once. A horrible letter. Had Molly give it to you.” His tone was no longer casual.

“Hmm.” I hoped a non-committal hum would conceal the fact that I’d memorized every word of it.

“I’m ashamed of what I said in it, and I suspect you remember it all too well.” 

Ah. Failed, then.

“I do.”

“We didn’t speak vows, but I wrote them anyway. And I want them to overwrite the other letter.”

How John could always bring me to tears—stab and heal at the same time. An enormous lump was blocking my throat, so I just nodded against his head.

“Which do you want first? Vows, or our first married sex?” Always knowing when I was overwhelmed, John; he was trying to lighten the tone.

“Sex,” I mumbled into his neck. “I don’t have vows for you.”

“You didn’t have to. You already gave me your last vow. —Come on, then, let’s be having you.”

He turned in my arms and started to unbutton his shirt.

“My job.”

I loved taking John’s clothes off, seeing his public persona drop—for me, only for me—“grace laced with muscle, and strength by gentleness confined,” I always thought. Seeing him emerge from his layers of fabric never failed to affect me in the most instantaneous, intimate way. He knew it, and smiled as happily as the first time it had ever happened in this room.

His skin, so smooth under my hands. His nipples, tightening in the cool air and my warm mouth. His cock, bouncing free as I tugged down his pants and _very_ elegant trousers. I knelt to nose at him, breathed in his scent at his thighs, testicles, belly, cock—loving the competing textures, the blend of salt and musk. John was endlessly delectable, a sensory banquet.

But he tugged me back to my feet, self-conscious that he hadn’t showered and I had. I never knew how much I would love knowing someone so well; it was the very opposite of boring. He pushed me the few feet back to the bed and tumbled me onto it, crowding me into a diagonal sprawl across the coverlet.

I was lying face up, John anchoring me with his forearms on either side of my hips and lowering his head to my groin. His hair, his cheek, his lips brushed lightly and unpredictably against me, now here, now there, grazing delicately over my skin while his hands tightened their grip on my waist. He was driving me to desperation, I was reaching, thrusting, trying to find resistance, friction, only to have him evade me and leave me thwarted and panting.

Only when I subsided would he start in again, and it was—deliriously pleasurable. Without looking, I couldn’t discern where he was touching me, or how; sensations of touch began to blur and bleed together, and I couldn’t track them, but only revel in the confluence of tactile data.

Sounds too merged, as my own breath and the muted noises of the city and the hush of our bodies on the sheets and John’s murmurs of _let me_ and _just lie still_ and _love you_ and _my turn now_ coalesced into a rushing murmur like water. Behind my closed eyelids a strange kaleidoscope began to circle, coloured patterns wheeling slowly around a fixed point like an astronomical model, and the fixed point was John, but John was everywhere, beside me and above and around and inside.

It wasn’t an out-of-body experience, at all. If anything, an out-of-brain experience. Language centers shut down, leaving only images and sensation and the vast, oceanic _emotion_ of John somehow melding with me, with all of me, in a true union compared to which a wedding ceremony or marriage contract was not even a pale half-shadow.

* * * * *

When I came to consciousness the next morning he was already awake, leaning on his elbow and smiling at me. He seemed to radiate his own light, though that was surely a halo projected from my own ... adulation. 

“What. Happened.” Bending words to my purpose was still surprisingly difficult, and my voice didn’t sound at all like me.

“I try to make a wedding night memorable, and you’ve forgotten already? Next time I’ll—”

Before he got any further I launched myself at him, growling “ _There will be no next time_ ,” and pushing him back so I could land on his chest and clasp his hands in mine on either side of his head.

No telling where that would have gone—I intended a memorable wedding morning—but we both froze at the sound of tiny, disproportionately noisy feet stumping down the stairs. 

Da was a bit more functional than Ba, and heaved me off of himself to go find a dressing-gown. As he put it on he pulled a folded sheet of paper out of the pocket and tossed it onto the bed, smiling. Then he opened the bedroom door to collect our daughter and take her to the kitchen.

* * * * *

_16 December 2019_

_With my whole heart, Sherlock, I thank you for saying yes. For loving me, loving us. You and I have always made our bargains blindfolded, but this time I wanted you to know what I'm promising you today, when you marry me._

_Of course I’m promising what everyone promises when they marry: love, solidarity, fidelity, and all the rest of it. But you and I have nine years of history now, and that requires some additions, some clarifications, and maybe a strategic exclusion or two. Sorry if it gets a bit long-winded._

_I promise to put you and Rosie first, before anyone and anything else. I promise to put you and me ... right after. (Until she’s an adult, our daughter needs us to be ready to make any sacrifice for her; after that, she’s on her own!) I promise that the way I love you is like nothing else I’ve ever felt, no other devotion I’ve ever experienced; there is no one else for me, and there never will be. I will not lie to you, and I will trust you not to lie to me._

_I promise that I’ll never take you or us for granted. When I want to strangle you, I’ll remember what it was like when you were dead, or with someone else, and I will rein in my murderous intent. I will never deliberately hurt you, and if you show me that I’ve done so inadvertently, I will invent increasingly extravagant ways to make it up to you. And for no reason or under any circumstances will I lay a violent hand on you. (I will always be ashamed to have to finish that promise with the words “ever again.”)_

_I promise to always show you the respect, the admiration, that I feel. Not to mock you in such a way that you (or anyone watching) would feel diminishes you. Not to try to make you different than you are: you’ve already done so much to adapt your work and our home to Rosie, and to my work as a surgeon. Not to let you forget that you are still and always the most brilliant and miraculous man—person—I’ve ever met._

_I promise that I will never again leave you out of any decision involving our daughter or our life together. I will respect your knowledge and insight about what’s good for her. When I disagree, we will talk it to death until we find a solution we can both live with._

_I promise that I will take care of you, body and mind, heart and soul, and cherish you to the end of our lives. Mostly, though, I am promising to try my hardest to be the kind of man you deserve, and who can deserve you. Tall order, and likely to take some time. But we have time now, and that’s how I’m going to use it. I promise._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock insisted on giving you his version of the estrangement and the wedding, so thank you for reading these two first chapters which recap the ground gone over in _Teach Your Children Well_. Next chapter will find us in Venice.
> 
> The gorgeous paintings are both by Procoffeinating, who reads my mind and then improves on it. They should be compared to the "originals" in _Drawn to Stars_ , ch. 31: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20951528/chapters/50960767.  
> Even better--all four paintings can be seen together in _Winter Light_ , ch. 17, "Neural Pathways." 
> 
> Thank you again, hubblegleeflower, for betaing and 7PercentSolution for brit-picking. And Shakespeare, for Titania's "forgeries of jealousy" monologue, which gives me the chapter titles. Simply stunning. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , Act II, scene 1, l. 81ff.


	3. The quaint mazes in the wanton green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I want the full experience, canals and palaces and twisting streets and gondolas and mysterious costumed figures lounging on stone bridges. I don’t even care if the city’s underwater and we have to walk around on wooden duckboards, I want to see Venice in the fog and kiss you when no one’s looking.”

I read and reread John’s letter, letting my eyes and hands run over the paper, though I’d already committed it to memory. Not just because it was moving, but because it was wise. A deeply wise recapitulation of our long history, and a promising preview of our future. Together. At a certain point I took a photograph of it, in case my repeated consultation should wear out both paper and ink.

The rest of December and most of January passed fairly serenely, with only one midnight rooftop chase (John claimed he didn’t like it that there was even one, but I saw his face, he _did_ ). Occasionally his operating schedule collided with a case, but the tension and alienation of the previous spring were not even a distant memory: Watson loved school, I actually did enjoy having more time for The Work, and I didn’t mind admitting that John had been, well, _not wrong_ about both.

Christmas we kept under our usual strict control. Watson held stubbornly to a set of absurd so-called traditions that were traditional nowhere else but 221B, and which fortunately did not involve gift overkill. We were, according to her grandparents and her Nana, utter killjoys on that front. Watson opened one important gift on Christmas Eve, and a tiny one on each of the twelve days of Christmas. Early on Mummy and Mrs H always tried to push the envelope on the gifts, but it had become more a game than an actual subversion; and in any case I was naturally winning.

We had one distinct surprise in early January, when we received a framed photograph in the mail—of the night of our wedding, from Donovan. Her massive camera had made itself useful. The photo was in black and white, and the flash she’d used made the minuscule raindrops look like tiny confetti. John was looking down and smiling; I was smiling too, looking down at him, my hand on his arm. I don’t remember that moment; mostly I remember staring out at the acquaintances assembled either side of the steps.

Donovan had taken some two hundred photos, on a thumb drive she included in the envelope.

Her note read, “Lestrade said you weren’t doing pictures, but one day your daughter might want to see them. The photos were all shot in colour, if you prefer that; if there’s one you like better, hang that instead. Wishing you all the best. S. Donovan.”

John was delighted with the one she’d chosen. I spent a few moments wondering whether “all” meant “wishing all three of you the best,” or “wishing the two of you all the best,” and if the latter, was it sarcastic. John reminded me that she wouldn’t have gone to the trouble and expense solely to be sarcastic. He was probably right, and it was just an unexpectedly kind gesture.

* * * * *

What leisure time John had after my birthday was mostly taken up with planning a honeymoon. He had long ago got a bee in his bonnet for Venice, and it was undeniably a beautiful city. I did make a case for Sicily, as warmer in the winter, less damp, and on the whole less tourist-infested; but for some reason he seemed set on the Serenissima, and that was fine with me.

We settled on early February, from the 4th to the 12th, so we could be back well in time for Watson’s fifth birthday. John was delighted that our stay would overlap with the opening of Carnevale; I was much less so.

Actually I was horrified, particularly once he hinted at costumes.

“Oh, come on, what’s not to like? You are Mister Costume himself!”

“No, John. I’m Mister Disguise. There’s a difference.”

“Oh? What difference is that?” He was actually _smirking_ , a revolting facial expression: clearly he thought he had me.

“I wear disguises so as not to be noticed. Costumes are exactly the opposite: people wear them to be noticed. To draw attention. Particularly Venetian costumes, particularly at Carnevale. No. Just, no.”

But by then John was shouting with laughter, and I caught on that he was teasing. He could always wrong-foot me when I was this ruffled; it was mortifying.

“I just want to _see_ the costumes, you berk. Not wear one.”

“Googling won’t suffice, I gather?” Trying to regain my composure by resorting to sarcasm just made me feel like a cat that bathes when embarrassed. (Yes, cats can be embarrassed. I googled it.)

“Nope,” he said cheerfully, “I want the full immersion, three-dimensional experience, canals and palaces and twisting streets and gondolas and mysterious costumed figures lounging on stone bridges. I don’t even care if the city’s underwater and we have to walk around on wooden duckboards, I want to see Venice in the fog and kiss you when no one’s looking.”

Once I’d have winced, thinking that was a mark that John was embarrassed about being seen to be involved with a man. Those days were long gone. He was more uninhibited, more demonstrative, with me than I’d ever seen him with any woman he’d ever dated. (And I’d seen him when he didn’t know I was looking.)

“And you don’t think Watson would enjoy all this?”

“Again, nope. She’ll be in school, and her aunts will be spoiling her rotten. We’re taking her to France in the summer anyway, and she’ll translate for me and make me feel a complete idiot. This holiday is for you and me. And you won’t make me feel a complete idiot, at least no more than usual.”

The breath rushed out of my lungs as I realised for the ten thousandth time how much I loved John, how perfectly his strong suits compensated for my weak ones and vice versa, and how unfazed he was by being married ( _married_ ) to an erratic genius with bizarre blind spots and incapacities. And for the hundredth time I thought of his vows.

He insisted on doing most of the organising, and since Venice is one of the most internet- and anglophone-friendly of Italian cities, I left him to it. My one request was a hotel a bit off the tourist route, for example somewhere in the Dorsoduro district. Picturesque, but not overwhelmed with tourists—if that was even possible, during the run-up to Carnevale.

* * * * *

We arrived in Venice mid-afternoon on the Tuesday, and fetched up at the airport boat pier near our accommodation—in Dorsoduro, as I’d suggested. I hadn’t realised that John was also consulting Mycroft, but as soon as I saw that the hotel had sent its own _motoscafo_ to bring us over, it was obvious which of them had come up with the location. The collision between John’s taste and Mycroft’s led to unexpected juxtapositions and some accidental comedy, but I was in no mood to judge. Because the hotel was Mycroft’s wedding present; because John so much wanted me to like it; because it wasn’t just luxurious, it was playfully and gracefully so—I was determined to be pleased.

The little _motoscafo_ brought us up the narrow canal that runs alongside the Santa Maria della Salute church, under a low bridge and up to the landing in front of Reception. We could easily have walked, in fact. But John wanted to spoil me, and I do love it when he does. The baroque bulk of the Basilica was gleaming white, the canal water the palest celadon, the sky the blue of a Canaletto painting. It made for a contrast, then, when I saw our room: John threw open the door and, his hand on the small of my back, showed me in to the the _Sala Noire_. 

The room was lavish (obviously) and dark ( _obviously_ ), highlighted with colours and patterns so lush they were almost synaesthetic. The black velvet coverlet embroidered with red, green-gold, and silver threads was made for a pirate’s lair; doubtless John was remembering my youthful career ambitions. The damascene walls were the rich man’s version of our iris wallpaper in 221B. But more than the gilt lampstands or the ruched sheer gold curtains or the Louis Quatorze chairs, the room’s crowning glory was the black glass chandelier in the center of the ceiling.

Serpentine, sinuous, shining like obsidian, the thing looked almost alive. I loved it on sight. It flirted with the light in its tiny bulbs like a dancer, it presided over the room like a local deity. Without taking my eyes off it I set my case on the floor the better to stare at it, circling around it and staring some more. Tortuous, almost writhing. I’d seen Venetian glass in the most fanciful forms and colours imaginable, but this—this was more like Dale Chihuly drinking with Friedrich Hundertwasser and Antoni Gaudí, plotting to abduct the Rococo. 

While John looked around the room and the bath, I kept examining the chandelier from every angle, finally falling backwards onto the bed to see it from below. Each of its eighteen lamps capped a curvaceous arm like pulled toffee that’s been twisted; teardrops of black glass dangled and danced; it was simply captivating. I couldn’t call it tasteful; it was beyond banal considerations of “good taste.” It was, instead, a masterpiece. Erotic from this angle, yet from the side, vaguely reminiscent of an octopus. I was going to enjoy seeing it in every light.

“So I’ve a rival for your attention?” John’s voice was warm and delighted as he watched me revel in the gorgeous, unexpected thing.

“Never. Or never for long.” I pulled him down to join me on the bed, and kissed him until we were both hot and bothered under our winter coats, mine of heavy wool and his of weightless down.

We extricated ourselves from each other and from our outerwear, then, agreeing with a glance that we were in no hurry to go out, from our clothing as well. We climbed into bed, and I stared at the mesmerising forms again.

“Do you know why you like it so much?”

“Because it’s unique? Beautiful? Dramatic?”

“Exactly. Just like you.”

“Tell me, are _all_ my tastes narcissistic?”

“No, of course not. You’re not a narcissist, anyway. You just like to play one when convenient. I’ve got your number.”

“I should hope you do. I gave it to you the day we met. Besides, we live together. We’re _married_ , in fact.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed. I see _and_ I observe.” John said this so smugly that I was obliged to tackle him onto his back and start kissing him, with intent; his breath hitched and his eyes closed and he whispered,

“Sherlock. I want you inside me.”

Oh _God_ , yes. The golden afternoon light filtering in through the sheer curtains had faded into twilight before we were ready to even think about going out to explore what John insisted was the most beautiful city in the world.

* * * * *

What to see in Venice:

John wandering through narrow streets along shimmering canals, his face illuminated with delight at the legendarily dazzling architecture. Even in Italy, justly famed for its attention to beauty, few other cities seem so wholly to privilege grace and gratuitous elegance and harmony of line and colour. The absence of automobiles is the icing on an already exquisite cake.

John standing under the dome of San Marco, dwarfed by the empty, echoing spaces, staring up in fascination at the glittering gold mosaics and then turning to me with his unshadowed smile to share that pleasure.

John steering me decisively toward a _bacaro_ near our hotel in the Dorsoduro, where only Venetian was heard (he didn’t know that) and selecting _cicchetti_ —small servings—of excellent meats, cheeses, breads, and egg dishes that he thinks I will like. And a white wine he knew I would like.

John staring in wonder at the ostentatious gilt-and-prism splendour of La Fenice opera house, muttering to himself about class and pompous gits pretending to enjoy ponderous music, and there may have been a murmur about fire safety in there but I couldn’t say he was wrong about that, and the poorly-concealed regret in his expression when he realised we could have seen _La Traviata_ here had we timed our honeymoon differently.

John watching ballet at La Fenice after our tour: an inventive composition on the life and influence of Eleonora Duse, the Italian Sarah Bernhardt (or was that vice versa? They were close contemporaries). He loved the music, by Pärt and by Britten; he loved the kinetic power of the dancers; he loved the expressiveness of the choreography. I assume the performance was superior, from the absorbed attention he devoted to it; but I was mostly watching him.

John giving the nearly empty Gallerie dell’Accademia the patented John treatment for museums: breezing past twenty works of art only to examine one outlier for six or eight minutes. Whenever I quiz him on it, of course, he’s forgotten most of the details. He sees, he enjoys, but he doesn’t _always_ observe.

John sitting well forward in the boat he hired to take us to the laguna islands of Torcello, Burano, and Murano. His silver-blond hair streams in the wind, he grinned as the prow bounded up every time it cut across the waves, and he breathed the sea air in deep. No visit to Venice is complete without this sight.

John watching in fascination a glass-blowing demonstration on Murano, as the artisan’s deft, scarred hands confidently twirled the molten material into shapes that would quickly be final—speed being the final ingredient, after silica, colour, heat, and expertise. He would buy me something unique, perhaps bespoke, nothing that one can find in every glass shop. He’d do it in secret, to surprise me with it later in the year, and I would perform astonishment to the very best of my (considerable) ability.

John thrashing under a writhing black glass chandelier: scratch that, no one’s going to see that, no one _gets_ to see that, it’s a more private and privileged treasure of Venice than the whole of the Guggenheim Museum and its warehouse of undisplayed artworks.

  
  


* * * * *

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday passed in the most bone-deep satisfying way a honeymoon could possibly offer. Love, art, laughter, music, intimacy, architecture, complicity, food, rest, walking, the idlest of light shopping, sleep, waking, lust, satiation, talking, silence, all in the company of the most companionable of men. Every day marked by the reflected shimmer of the green water on the walls and ceilings of the city, and the absurdly labyrinthine layout of its streets.

Dorsoduro quickly became familiar. It was usually quiet enough that we could track the crystal-clear voices that carry over the water when there’s barely any background roar of combustion engines. Whenever we ventured into the more tourist-saturated neighborhoods, however, we could not miss the imminence of the Carnevale opening. From the ubiquitous posters to the influx of buskers, from the distinctive masks to the flamboyant costumes monopolising shop windows, from the increase in foot traffic to the city workers installing temporary stands and signs and walkways—Venice was clearly gearing up for something big.

Saturday would be the first day of the grand opening weekend, and already by Friday morning walking was quite a challenge, for the crowds. We pushed our way to the _sestiere_ of San Polo to pay homage to the tombs of Monteverdi and Canova in _i Frari_ , a massive basilica with a museum’s worth of art scattered casually throughout. We heard an impromptu organ recital while John studied the Titian altarpiece, and then repaired for lunch to a modest _trattoria_ on a back street. 

The Venetian owners suggested he let them choose for him. 

“Is that advisable?” He murmured to me, looking a bit skeptical. 

“Yes, it’s not unusual: they know what ingredients they’ve got in fresh, what’s going to taste best, and I told them you’ve no seafood restrictions.” It was true: John would try anything, gamely and appreciatively.

“The Italian sounds different here than in Bologna.” 

“Oh, yes. Venetian is very, well, musical, and lean, and crisp. Bolognese has a lilt as well, but the diction is less focused, more of a burr.” 

“Trust you to know about accents. Is it harder to understand?” There was no denying it: I’d always loved to impress John.

“The accent in Italian, no. The dialect—is a challenge. They all are, though.” 

The proprietress brought him spaghetti with tiny clams, and he was suitably impressed; out of some impulse of _sentiment_ , I ordered a risotto with shrimp and peas. The _tiramisù_ , coffee and _digestivo_ made me glad we’d skipped the meat course. When we left, she pressed her business card on John and made him promise to return, as he was a delight to feed, she said, and asked me to translate. I may have been guilty of toning down the enthusiasm of her phrasing, but there was no mistaking her warmth.

We’d reserved the afternoon for the museum in the Doge’s Palace, reasoning that we could do John’s (our) costume gawking before and after.

And indeed there was plenty of scope for gawking when we came out of the museum at dusk: the iconic façade of the Palace had become the backdrop of dozens of costumed figures. They draped themselves on balustrades, lounged against columns, clearly posing to be photographed. Some were casually elegant, some wooden and self-conscious; some were masked, some not. Some costumes were historical, some modernistic and fanciful. Taken singly, each was intriguing; taken together, they were breathtaking.

That too was a sight without which no visit to Venice could be complete: John taken wholly out of himself _while fully clothed_ , his eyes wide and sparkling, his lips pressed together as though he were trying not to let on how enchanted he was. Night fell without our noticing, and after a couple of hours the crowd in the piazza had grown oppressive. We decided to leg it over to the Giglio ferry stop to take a boat across the canal to the Salute ferry stop, near our hotel. A rest before a late dinner, and more Carnevale-watching, sounded just right.

I’ve never understood why walking through museums and churches is so much more tiring on legs and back than walking briskly, hiking, running, or even parkour. I felt sixty years old as we made our way to the Giglio stop, though I tried to disguise it with a casual saunter. John was tired too, but was much too adult to pretend otherwise. I glanced at him fondly and reflected that one day I’d set aside my need to deny hunger, fatigue, emotion, need itself; but I wasn’t there yet.

I moved in close, for warmth and to see him glance up and smile. I nodded across the canal to Santa Maria della Salute, beautifully illuminated and alluring, close by our hotel. Like everything in Venice, the colour of its stones changed with the light; it could be pale grey, warm ivory, or as now, a cool white. Canal water ranged from sage green to verdigris to viridian to Aegean.

 _Tired_. Almost home, almost in our bed under the Murano glass chandelier, almost in John’s arms.

But something noisy and official was happening just ahead of us, outside the affectedly tasteful Gritti Palace Hotel. There were sirens, and flashing lights, and dozens of uniformed officers swarming the place, and _oh God no_ , five of the distinctive charcoal-grey launches of the Guardia di Finanza. I stopped dead and watched as Finanza officers in uniform escorted a half-dozen very expensively dressed men and women out of the hotel. No sooner had I registered that my stomach had turned to lead, than I heard John growl, “What the hell is _Zanardi_ doing here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, my deep gratitude to beta hubblegleeflower (having such a writer for a beta is like having Michelangelo offer to paint your accent wall) and britpicker 7PercentSolution (having such a writer for a britpicker is like having Maggie Smith offer to be your dialect coach). 
> 
> 7PercentSolution gave me marching orders months ago when I was still thinking through the Venetian honeymoon. Only one hotel will do, she said, and it has a _black glass chandelier_. Check [this post](https://totallysilvergirl.tumblr.com/post/631497058590883840/selected-venice-shots-to-go-with-ch-3-of-the) for images, since I wouldn't want to put that hotel's metaphorical nose out of joint by implying that it could, in real life, possibly countenance the goings-on in this fic.  
> Chapter titles all from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , Act II, scene 1, l. 81ff.


	4. With thy brawls thou hast disturb'd our sport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And in a moment there he was, looking self-possessed but betraying just the faintest bit of unease nonetheless. His temples and beard had gone a bit greyer, but otherwise he looked very little changed from when we’d spent the month of February together four years earlier.
> 
> He smiled politely at John. “I’m glad to see that violence was not necessary, Doctor Watson.”

**7–8 February 2020**

It all happened so quickly—or perhaps, I was so shocked—that there was no time to steer John away from seeing Roberto. Or Roberto from seeing us, for that matter. He was escorting a handcuffed suspect (suspected of what, I wondered, and immediately stifled my curiosity) toward a police launch, and when he saw us, Roberto actually stumbled. He nodded tightly, and returned to what was obviously a very large operation inside the cordoned-off area.

It couldn’t have been more poorly timed. On our _honeymoon_ , for God’s sake. We’d had such perfect days and nights, harmonious and tender and undemanding, and now this. It was almost too much to believe.

John and I had stopped dead, a bit in the spotlight and a bit in the way. He came back to functionality first, tugged my arm and said neutrally, “Our stop’s just down and to the right, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes,” I answered absently, setting myself in motion to keep up with him. The farther we got from the fracas, the more awkward it felt that we weren’t talking. The silence lasted as we boarded the _vaporetto_ , crossed the Grand Canal, and got off at the Salute stop with a few other passengers. The night air always felt colder on the water, and I shivered.

John put his arm around my waist and said, “You cold? We’ll be inside in a tick.”

His voice was surprisingly normal, but I was braced for an uncomfortable conversation once we did get indoors. This was hardly the ending I’d been imagining, to our stimulating day.

I didn’t speak as we picked up the key and went upstairs and down the plush corridor to our room. And still didn’t, as we took off our coats and flung them on a gilt chair, and turned to look at each other.

“Well,” said John, carefully. “That was disconcerting.”

He looked at me and a smile quirked the edge of his mouth. “Come on, you. Get over here.”

Gingerly I moved closer. I still couldn’t think of a thing to say, even though John didn’t seem even discomfited, let alone outraged.

“What is it?” His voice was fond, as always. “Was it so bad to see him again?”

Finally the dam broke, and I could speak. “I don’t care the slightest _bit_ about seeing him again. I only care about _you_ seeing him again, and on our honeymoon, no less. I knew we should have gone to Sicily.”

He laughed. “Well, if _I_ don’t care about seeing him, and you don’t care about seeing him, there’s no need to wish we were in Sicily, is there? I’ve been enjoying every minute of Venice until just then, and we can keep on enjoying it. Can’t we?”

John truly had buried the past, then. I knew there’d been a handful of times he’d been in a rage about Roberto, a futile retroactive rage for which he had no outlet. He told me he’d gone into those episodes in depth with Ella, in a way I found quite unnecessarily masochistic. But she seemed to have helped him to a serenity about the whole existence of my month with Roberto that I hadn’t realised he’d reached.

“Why aren’t you ... angry?” _Angry_ wasn’t the word I wanted, not really, but words weren’t obeying me at the moment, and it was better than _jealous_.

“Why on earth would I be angry?” He took me in his arms, warm and solid.

“You might imagine I knew he was in town. That I ... kept it from you.” 

At this John tightened his hold and he actually laughed, loud and easy. “I don’t imagine anything of the sort. You didn’t see your face, Sherlock, or his. I did. You were as taken aback as I was, and so was he. It’s just an embarrassing coincidence. Don’t give it another thought; I’m not going to. Bloke has a right to be doing his job somewhere else besides Rome, after all.”

My knees went weak with relief. I knew John was too adult for the sight of Roberto to throw him into a strop; but I’d been worried that he’d be wounded, and suspicious, and thrown back into uncertainty and grief that I never wanted him to revisit again.

“Sherlock?” He was trying to catch my eye, and to get me to say something.

“Yes. I’m sorry. Of course you know you have nothing to worry about, from him.”

“From him? Certainly not. At least, _I’ve_ never been tempted to take up again with someone I walked away from—don’t know about you, but that just isn’t a thing. Particularly when that person _really_ didn’t want the relationship to end. But that isn’t the point.”

What John said made sense. I’d never looked back on my time with Roberto with nostalgia, or fondness, let alone regret that I ended it. On the contrary. Roberto’s love—need, even—only made me feel intensely uncomfortable and vaguely guilty. I had tried, honestly tried, but the more he wanted me, the less I wanted him; and I ended up feeling as though I’d used him, when it certainly hadn’t started out that way. 

But that, John had just said, was not the point.

“What is the point, then?” I lowered my cheek to his hair, loving the smell of him, the smell of the fresh night air still lingering in his hair.

“Just that I don’t have to worry about anyone else; I only have to trust _you_. Much easier than trying to fend off a world full of potential rivals, one by one.”

I could hear the smile in his voice, but what he was saying wasn’t a joke—it was a revelation. It would take some thinking about, too. So John wasn’t jealous, because he knew that I loved him and only him. Therefore, if John became jealous, it would be because of how I was behaving, not someone else, some imagined rival. Did that mean that I was responsible when he was jealous, and he when I was?

That couldn’t be right. I knew I’d been wrong when I nearly shut down our relationship over a misconstrued (and incomplete) message string on his phone. Adults are responsible for their (our) own behaviour. But if he really had been initiating a flirtation with that Nicole Kidman lookalike, would my reaction be his responsibility then?

Once again I’d thought myself into a tangle. Time to change gears.

“Are you hungry? Can we eat close by?” I wasn’t hungry, but it was almost certain that he would be.

We ended up having dinner in the vicinity, and settled for a short stroll to digest and see what Carnevale activity was taking place away from the city centre. There was a light mist, shifting and atmospheric, which added mystery to the figures posed in doorways and on bridges. Dorsoduro was calm; it could have been anticlimactic, but instead it was comforting. The fog and the quiet mantled us around, reinforcing the dyad we’d always been; and I thought of something John had written in his vows. About trust, and honesty: he promised not to lie to me, and to trust me (me!) not to lie to him.

Around eleven, he drew a hand down my cheek and murmured, “Ready for bed?”

And with a shock I realised we hadn’t checked in with Watson at all. I hoped Harry and Clara had distracted her from that oversight.

“I’m a terrible father. I forgot all about phoning to say goodnight to Watson.”

John drew my head down to kiss me on the lips. “Yeah, no. Honeymoon is a get-out-of-jail-free card. Besides, if you’re a terrible father, that makes two of us.”

“She’s clearly doomed,” I intoned in my darkest voice. “Serial killer in the making.”

By then we'd reached the hotel, and not long after we were tangled up in bed, drifting off to the sound of the canal lapping outside the window.

* * * * *

The next morning, as we breakfasted in the hotel, along with the coffee and crêpes our waiter brought a business card which he held out to John. “From a gentleman in reception.”

_Breathe. Even if it’s him, there’s nothing to worry about._

John read the card, large and creamy and deluxe as Italian business cards could be, turned it over to read the scrawl on the back, then handed it to me.

_May I see you both for ten minutes? RZ_

_Both_. Tactful as always, Roberto. I tried to keep my face neutral as I nodded to John.

He told the waiter, “Bring him through.”

And in a moment there he was, looking self-possessed but betraying just the faintest bit of unease nonetheless. His temples and beard had gone a bit greyer, but otherwise he looked very little changed from when we’d spent the month of February together four years earlier.

He smiled politely at John. “I’m glad to see that violence was not necessary, Doctor Watson.”

He clearly meant it as an overture, referencing their reciprocal threats years ago; John winced, however. Probably wondering if I’d ever told Roberto about the day in the hospital morgue.

“On either side,” was all he replied. And then: “Do sit down.”

The waiter had already brought over a chair. As Roberto settled into it—leaving his overcoat on, I was glad to see—I asked, deliberately, “How did you find us?”

“Asked a friend in the _Questura_. You know the police track hotel guests, part of the anti-terrorism laws.” He didn’t seem at all apologetic or embarrassed about having tracked us down.

“What kind of arrest were you making last night? We didn’t mean to stumble into the thick of it.” I kept my voice neutral.

“After the big trafficking case wrapped up in 2016, I was reassigned. I had my pick of cases, in intellectual property piracy, tax evasion, and money-laundering. I’ve been concentrating on cases connected with big money, high social status, high visibility. Last night was a very high-profile arrest. It required a glare of publicity, lots of Finanza in uniform, media coverage, and resulting public humiliation for a prominent drug manufacturer.”

Roberto said all this in the impersonal tone he used with me when we first met. As though we’d never known each other before, let alone lived together, had sex.

John looked carefully at me, not wanting to interrupt; when I was silent, he asked, “So which was it? Tax evasion, piracy, or money-laundering?”

So if he’d looked for information online, he hadn’t found it; I had. The arrest was a major story in the Italian press. 

Roberto answered, “IP piracy. It isn’t only fashion and media that get pirated; there’s an astonishing amount of money to be made in pirating drug compounds.”

“I imagine there would be. May I ask why you looked us up?” John could have said "tracked us down;" that he did not, meant he was trying not to put Roberto on the defensive.

“This is an uncomfortable situation, and I’m very sorry. But” —Roberto turned to me— “there’s a chance that my boss will want to consult with you on a case, Sherlock. He saw you at the Gritti Palace last night, and remembered that we knew each other. Asked me to make an overture to you.”

Well, _that_ phrasing was awkward, certainly. It dropped into the silence like a glass shattering on impact.

I didn’t want anything to do with it. “Roberto. We’re here on our honeymoon.”

At this, he actually seemed to go pale. “I won’t detain you, then. My boss may be contacting you about ... but I’ll not be involved.”

Because Roberto is also discreet, and he could imagine that no one could be less welcome there and then than he.

“I’m afraid I’ll be in Venice for the next week.” He sounded regretful.

“We won’t,” said John, placidly.

“We won’t?” It burst out before I realised what kind of impression it would give Roberto.

“We’re going to Sicily, remember?”

“Oh, ah, yes, of course. We aren’t available, Roberto, please tell your boss. Everyone gets to be unavailable on their honeymoon, for God’s sake.” I didn’t mean to sound as waspish as I did, but I was disconcerted at having revealed—and so clumsily—that John was changing our plans.

Roberto was already standing, and as he put out his right hand to John, I saw that he was wearing a wedding ring. Not the usual hand for it, but definitely a wedding ring. I hoped he’d found someone else to love, and married them. It would make me feel a great deal less horrible about how I extricated myself from him that February night in 2016.

He shook my hand too, and that was supremely strange: his hands had been all over me, and mine all over him, and here we were, uncomfortable strangers feigning composure as we said goodbye again. I thought, wrongly, that it would be for the last time. 

“Of course, I’ll tell him. I wish you a ... _buon proseguimento_ , Sherlock, Doctor Watson. Congratulations, and my very best wishes.”

Roberto was rattled indeed, if he forgot an English phrase. I’d never heard that happen before.

“Good luck with your case, Zanardi.” John was as collected as he’d been throughout, despite having changed our travel plans with lightning speed in response to the outside chance of our running into Roberto again in Venice. Curious.

We both watched as he turned and left, then looked at each other.

John raised his eyebrows. “What?” 

He hailed the waiter for fresh crêpes, as ours had gone cold. I played with the silver (real silver, naturally) and refolded the damask napkin obsessively until an unwelcome memory intruded, and I put it down.

“You’re not bothered by this encounter, but we’re going to Sicily?”

“Yes. Problem?” He was so far from bothered that there was a discernible twinkle in his eye.

“We still haven’t seen the Ca’ Rezzonico with all the ...” For the life of me I could not call to mind what we were supposed to see at the Ca’ Rezzonico, despite having been the one to insist on it.

“Yes. Well. There are flights to Palermo and Catania this evening, so we can still see it if you want. Or if you aren't wedded to the idea, there’s a flight to Reggio Calabria at 2 p.m., and we'd take a ferry to Messina.”

I heaved an exaggerated sigh and said, “While I was in the shower.”

“Yes. I didn’t think I needed to explain something so obvious.” He poured out more of the excellent coffee, which had _not_ gone cold, and added some hot milk, an unusual indulgence.

“Are you disappointed?” It wasn’t the question I intended to ask, but I didn’t want John to miss out on a single day of Venice that he’d been looking forward to.

“No. In the past day the place has got so crowded that I think we’ve already had the best of it, really. And I’m not talking about Zanardi. Yesterday evening wasn’t even the official opening of Carnevale, and we could barely move for the tourists. I liked it better with just you, and the sun on the city, and the evening mist on the water.”

The words were romantic, but his tone was matter-of-fact.

How did I get this lucky? It was hardly the first time I’d wondered. Every time I think of what my life was before John; my disbelief in human kindness, before John; how barren of tenderness my own heart was, before John and I reunited in Bologna—the power of sheer chance astonishes me all over again. And again I thought of his letter, of everything he'd promised.

The waiter arrived with fresh hot crèpes, and John tucked in with delight. To hide the tears in my eyes I looked down, then a breath forced itself out that I tried to disguise as a laugh.

“Are you?” He said, after a couple of mouthfuls of breakfast.

“Am I what? Going to eat? Give me a moment.”

“Are you disappointed to leave?”

Oh, right. That was what we were talking about before I got caught up in marveling at John.

“Of course not. I thought all along that Sicily in winter would be preferable. I have to admit, I’m going to miss the chandelier.”

“Perhaps they’ll let you adopt it.”

“Ha. They wouldn’t part with that for twenty thousand pounds.” But it was a thought. Just one high-fee case would cover its purchase and delivery. I felt an unaccustomed rush of avidity.

“Just as well, I suppose. It’s a bit extravagant for Baker Street.” He chewed, clearly considering.

“I don’t know. It would go with the iris wallpaper.”

“ _Which_ you tend so lovingly that you’ve shot it up and spray-painted it, not once but twice. We’ll come back to visit the chandelier sometime, how’s that.” He moved his foot to rest his ankle against mine, and I thought again: I don’t deserve this. But I absolutely relish it.

As he finished up breakfast, I thought about our change of plan. If John wanted to avoid crowds, and Palermo itself could easily be as busy as Venice at Carnevale—we could hire a car and go out into the countryside. Perhaps a drive to explore that spectacularly beautiful western coast. Or east to the Madonie mountains, bare and steep like Mediterranean Cairngorms. Or south, to the Valley of the Temples. Or southeast, to Mount Etna. Wherever we went would be as beautiful as Venice, and far less theatrical than Carnevale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A year ago tomorrow I started posting _Drawn to Stars_ , hoping it would find some like-minded readers--not many, I imagined, given its multiple POV, its OMC suitor for Sherlock, and its not-exactly-concise writing. I have loved interacting with those who enjoyed reading it—many more than I ever believed would even see it.
> 
> Fandom Trumps Hate artist Rimedio has been laying out the first three fics in the series ( _Drawn to Stars_ , _Winter Light_ , and _Teach Your Children Well_ ) for private printing. Rimedio has made a gorgeous cover with art by Procoffeinating.
> 
> Last but not least: I always ask for fic recs in the comment boxes, and haven't done so yet. I've been hesitant about reading pandemic-related fics, for personal reasons; but I'd love to know which pandemic or quarantine fics have been sustaining in this difficult year. An AO3 link is a blessed timesaver if possible.
> 
> And again: Chapter titles all from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , Act II, scene 1, l. 81ff.


	5. Do you amend it, then; it lies in you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shower sex is effortful, in the average bathroom. It can be cramped, messy, and for one partner at least, a chilly drowning hazard. Not in the Sala Noire shower. Sprawling, heated, equipped with every possible design of shower spray from every angle. Several hand-held nozzles with different pressures and pulses. A bench and a stool at different heights. A frankly delicious light almond oil that tasted more like dessert than like skin care. Bars to grip for stability when legs trembled. 
> 
> This shower didn’t even pretend to be about hygiene. It was pure sybaritic indulgence, best enjoyed in company.

**8–9 February 2020**

As it turned out, we didn’t leave for Sicily until late afternoon; night still fell too soon to make it worth arriving at 5 or 6 p.m. After a wobbly start, our last day in Venice was memorable. John reserved our Palermo flight and hotel, and rescheduled our return to London.

He proposed an itinerary much more informed and specific than my musings at the breakfast table. Sunday in Palermo, then Monday after lunch, a drive along the coast to Cefalù in a hired car. Tuesday, we'd head into the Madonie mountains while the light held. Wednesday south to Agrigento, making our way back to Palermo to leave for London on Thursday the 13th. Returning a day later than we’d planned would make up for our travel day to Sicily.

I asked, “How do you _know_ all this?” John’s expertise, and especially his celerity, were uncharacteristic.

“I read up when I was planning in January. In case it turned out that you really, really preferred Sicily.”

I thought again of his vows, when he promised to take care of me. Silently I drew him to standing, from the desk where he’d been bent over his laptop. He came willingly into my arms, and as I kissed him I reached to draw his jacket off his shoulders.

He smiled and asked, “Where’s this going? Are you choosing me over the museum?”

“Always. I’m going to...what was it?” (though I knew perfectly well) “‘Take care of you, body and mind, heart and soul.’ We have hours before we have to leave, and” (pulling out his shirt, opening its buttons from the bottom up) “we have the most luxurious shower and bed in the Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia.”

“We already showered,” he pretended to object, but he was shivering with delight as I drew my fingers up his sides and reached for his nipples.

“Cleanliness, John, is next to—” I paused for a filthy swipe of my tongue into his mouth and out again. Responsive, _God_ , he was responsive.

“Godliness?” he gasped.

“I was going to say rimming, but fine, whatever.” I pitched my voice low.

We had patterns, of course we did; I wouldn’t call them habits, because somehow there was always something of the unexpected in our lovemaking, we could always surprise each other. As soon as I said _rimming_ John laughed, as I meant him to, but he was also galvanised as though he’d been aching for exactly this and hadn’t known it. (If he had, he’d have said before; he was far from passive, and never coy.)

He surged up to take my face between his hands and kiss me as though it’d been weeks, years, then eased back to bite gently at my lower lip, slide my own jacket off my shoulders, pull my upper lip between his and tongue at it delicately. He knew that shorted out all my circuits and took every element of planning and control straight out of my hands. I smiled under his mouth and let him unclothe me at his leisure.

He didn’t always look at me; John used touch, hearing, taste, more than just vision when we made love. It gave him all the sensory data he needed to bring me to my knees. He kissed his way down my neck and chest, lingering on my nipples until my legs were shaking. But I had something in mind, and wanted to get to it. I pulled back a bit.

“My turn. I told you.”

He laughed. “Oh, we make love by dibs, now, do we?”

“We definitely do.”

Mostly naked now we made our way to the shower, John pausing to hang the ‘do not disturb’ tag on the door outside.

Shower sex is effortful, in the average bathroom. It can be cramped, messy, and for one partner at least, a chilly drowning hazard. Not in the Sala Noire shower. Sprawling, heated, equipped with every possible design of shower spray from every angle. Several hand-held nozzles with different pressures and pulses. A bench and a stool at different heights. A frankly delicious light almond oil that tasted more like dessert than like skin care. Bars to grip for stability when legs trembled. 

This shower didn’t even pretend to be about hygiene. It was pure sybaritic indulgence, best enjoyed in company.

John was soon so close to orgasm he had to circle the base of his cock in an iron grip. He pushed me away for a moment while he retreated from the ledge. I stepped behind him, took his hips in my hands, sat on the low seat and parted his buttocks greedily. Stroked his already-tight bollocks, leaned forward to breathe in his arousal, his clean, damp skin.

I angled him gently to direct the water away from my objective, and felt it rush warm over my hands on his hips and arse. I could kiss John here all day, feel him convulse in my hands. Slide my tongue flat over his skin, suck at him to caress that lovely pucker, point my tongue to pry into him as he gasped my name and “yes, yes, _oh God_ , don’t stop, yes, there, on my _God_ ,” the redolence of sweet almond in my mouth and nose blending with the musk of his desire.

I slid a hand round to grasp his own on his cock, loosen his grip so I could stroke him to climax as I eased a finger in deep to brush his prostate. I lapped at him around my finger until I felt him coming, thrusting back against my face, pulsing over my hand, my finger still pushing into him but slowly now, softly, until his legs almost gave out and I pulled him, heaving panting breaths, onto my lap.

I knew he’d want his turn but I couldn’t wait, I was too close, I pushed my cock between his thighs, trying to avoid his oversensitised bollocks (shame, I loved their texture against my erection). I pushed the eager head of my cock up to surface between his inner thighs, felt the hot water pulse over it, and pulled back into the delicious pressure as he squeezed his legs.

It wasn’t long before I too was spasming—growling and gasping into his left shoulder and pulling him tight against me. He fumbled to turn off the water until we were ready to have our last actual wash in this astonishing invention.

As he toweled his hair dry he grinned at me in the foggy mirror and said, “You can have the chandelier at Baker Street. I want this shower.”

 _Win-win_.

* * * * *

I regretted leaving my black glass infatuation, but Venice was indeed too crowded now: walking to our airport transport took twice as long as it should have, for the crowds.

Just as there is no way to make air travel anything but painful in these days of mass tourism, there is no way to make anecdotes about it interesting. It is best left undescribed. Even mishaps are dull. Our hired car was not ready for us in Palermo, so we took public transport to the city centre and a taxi to our accommodation. It was quickly evident that it was a blessing in disguise to have to pick up a vehicle on Monday at the edge of town. I’ve driven all over the world, but had forgotten that Palermo was uniquely challenging.

John was tired and hungry, but a superb dinner of fresh fish in a down-at-heel but excellent trattoria restored him for a walk around the city by night. By local standards we’d eaten on the early side, and the city centre was humming with activity as we explored. Not with tourists; Palermo didn’t require Carnevale festivities to bring people out on the streets on winter evenings. Nothing could be more different from Venice, so beset by tourism that it seemed to have little left of its own civic life, and for that matter little of its original population.

We walked past some of the landmarks of the city, with its blend of architectural styles; John was particularly taken with the signature red domes on medieval churches. The names alone were beautiful: Saint John of the Hermits, the Palace of the Normans, the Palatine Chapel, the Vucciria market, the Kalsa district. Our B&B was in the Kalsa, and John could hardly have chosen better.

Since he had read up about the riches of Sicily he didn’t need explanations, so we just discussed our itinerary to Cefalù. He wanted to take the coast road, only regretting that the plan wouldn’t allow us to visit an island nature preserve rejoicing in the unlikely name of “Isola delle Femmine,” which he’d seen signposted between the airport and Palermo.

“You, go to ‘the island of women’? My worst nightmare.”

His brows snapped together and his lips pushed out, but he didn’t answer my attempt at a joke.

We weren’t late back to our B&B. It was nothing like as luxurious as the hotel in Venice, but the décor was eclectic and antique in its own way. Quite fortuitously and to my secret glee, it was not five minutes from the scene of a cold case I’d researched some time back: the 1969 theft of a major painting by Caravaggio. We could see it in the morning, before we decided which of the major sights to spend our day seeing.

John lay down on the bed and motioned an invitation to join him there. I let out a happy groan of sheer pleasure: stretching out on a perfect bed, with my perfect choice of companion.

Who cleared his throat. Ah. One of his tells when he has something to say.

I raised my eyebrows, signaling receptivity.

“Sherlock. Something you said earlier.” But then he seemed to founder.

“Yes?”

“Let me get something straight,” he said, carefully. “What you said, before, about me and the island of women.”

“That we couldn’t drive back to see it if we were driving on to Cefalù?” I knew this wasn’t what he meant, but I didn’t like where it was going.

“Yes. —No. That me on the Island of Women was your worst nightmare.”

Oh, God. That had burst out, and trying to pass it off as a witticism hadn't worked.

“Just a joke, John.”

“Pretty telling kind of quip, if you ask me.”

I hadn’t asked him. I was seconds of way from begging him _not_ to examine it further.

“I’m getting the sense that all this time, you’ve been feeling—precarious. As though I weren’t really ... reliable. So last spring—that teacher at Rosie’s school—that wasn’t a, well, a one-off?”

I couldn’t answer. Which was answer enough.

“Oh, love.” His voice was disbelieving, on the verge of distress. And that meant we really did have to have this conversation, little though I wanted it.

“Well. ‘ _Not gay_.’ You could be attracted to a wider range of temptation. I—I’m not. I only want you.”

John sighed, started to say something, stopped again. He hesitated, seemed to be considering how to proceed.

“Listen. It’s not about attraction. I can find people beautiful without wanting to ... you know. And someone can ... flirt at me, if they want, but unless I flirt back, you shouldn’t spend a second being uncomfortable about it.”

I remembered the horrible message string last March, where John had at least _seemed_ to be flirting back. It didn’t seem a good idea to quibble now, though. So I said nothing. He ran his hand down the back of my head, gripped my nape the way he does when he wants me to really pay attention.

“Pick that apart, okay. I can find someone attractive without being attracted to them. Can you see that?”

The tone of his voice was one I knew very well: I use it myself whenever I have to slow my brain down and explain a chain of reasoning about a deduction, and the evidence that led to it. (Do I sound as exasperatedly, determinedly patient as John did now?)

When I nodded, he said, “No, this isn’t a one-way conversation. I need to hear your reaction.”

“Yes. Of course. It happens all the time. ‘Molly looks perfect tonight. I’m not attracted to Molly.’”

“Yes, good example. But Molly isn’t in your subset of possible sex interests. Does it happen with people who are?”

I felt miserable. John knows, but doesn’t seem to understand, that my “subset of possible sex interests” is vanishingly small. It is practically only him. That’s one reason I can barely endure to remember the month with Roberto, though at the time there was very little objectionable about it. I didn’t know how to articulate this for John any better than I already had. So I just nodded.

“Yes, in theory.”

He smiled. “Good enough. Now. Moving on. I can be attracted to someone, without _at all_ wanting to flirt with them. Does that compute?”

“Yes, John.” I said it meekly, though it already made my stomach hurt to think of him being attracted to other people. “Does it happen ... often?”

“For the record, no. But I’m getting to why that question, and my answer, doesn’t matter. Does it happen to you?”

Well. This conversation had to be honest, and I trusted John never to use it to hurt me (deliberately), so I answered honestly.

“No. Never. I’m not attracted to people who aren’t you.”

He nodded, though looking dubious. This was familiar ground, after all, even if he never seemed to completely absorb what it meant in full. I insisted.

“It’s as though they were holograms, but you are real. That is. From a sexual and ... amorous standpoint.”

“Not sure how I got so lucky as to fit into your very specific template, but I’m _very_ glad I do. So, from here on, we might be talking about just me, not you. I could even—though I don’t—feel like flirting with someone, without intending to go beyond flirting.”

I could see that. I _have_ seen it. John has an auto-flirt setting that doesn’t actually mean that sex is imminent—just that in another universe, it could be. So I nodded, again, registering his hand, warm and firm, on my neck.

“But the material point—and here you need to pay careful attention, this is the heart of it—is that I don’t want to be with anyone but you.” He leaned in and kissed me, warm and quick. “I only want you. Both by desire, and by decision, and by promise.”

It didn’t seem a good moment to tell him that “both” can’t actually be followed by three objects, so I wisely kept that to myself.

“Even if I ever were tempted to go further, in other words, _I have decided not to_. Not to act on any such impulse. It’s just a question of knowing what I want, now and for the long term. And that’s all I can tell you. I can’t explain it any better than that.” His hand on my neck relaxed slightly.

Hm. So he too might have been frustrated at having to tell me the same things over and over, and having me not take them in, really. He kept his tone even, though, and warm.

“And how are you so ... um ... sure that it’s the same with me? You were disconcerted to see Roberto, and displeased, but you weren’t for a moment ... jealous.”

“That’s another thing altogether,” he answered. “But it’s also the flip side of the coin. It’s Ella who helped me work through that.”

I seemed to chronically undervalue his therapy, despite having a much improved opinion of Ella herself, and even having benefited measurably from his work with her. I resolved to listen extra attentively.

“You are ... I don’t know how to explain it. You say you have a lot of potential rivals because I might be attracted to both women and men. If I let myself think that way, I could feel that _I_ have a lot of potential rivals because both women and men are attracted to you. You are a _universal object of desire_. Like blood types, yeah? You think I’m a universal donor, and I think you’re a universal recipient.”

Well, that was a striking analogy. Immediately clear, if unconvincing. And, of course, I didn’t _want_ anyone else’s blood. Only John’s. But that wasn’t the point, so I just smiled and said, “if you say so.” His insistence on my universal appeal was contradicted by my own experience, but that wasn’t germane to the moment either, so.

“A straight man fell in love with you. A gay woman did. And of course, gay men and straight women want you. Who wouldn’t? You’re brilliant. Gorgeous. Charismatic. And I could never eliminate all the potential competition. So—listen carefully—I focused on you. I saw that you never, ever respond, not for real. Only for a case. Only when you’re shamming. And it’s always obvious, to me at least, when you’re shamming.

“But also: you made me a promise. I believe you. And I feel the same. So: I’m confident. I don’t worry.”

And he leaned close and kissed me (oh the taste of him, so sweet), nudging my face up to meet his eyes.

“And you wish it could be the same for me.”

“Well. _Yes._ I don’t ever want a repeat of last spring, obviously. That was—” an unforced shudder went through him. “That can’t happen again. But more than that, even, I want you to be happy, day to day. Not wondering when I’m going to wander off. Because the answer is, _never._ It’s a question of knowing what I want. I do know. And I think you do, too.”

“Know what I want? Or know what you want?” I was honestly getting confused. Talking about emotions is draining; no wonder we usually defaulted to gesture. What’s the aphorism? “ _Talking about love is like dancing about architecture_ ”?

“Both, you nutter.” His voice was amused, and affectionate, and far from annoyed, which was a relief. “Do I have to write you another letter?”

“No, though you are of course welcome to do so. But I may need to write you one.”

It wasn’t a riposte; I was dead serious. But John seemed to take it as a joke, to judge by his reply.

“I’ll look forward to it,” he answered, smiling crookedly. And he kissed me again.

But there was still something I needed to ask.

“About last spring. Have you been waiting for almost a year to have this conversation with me about it?”

This was an important question; I’d been thinking that everything had been settled, ever since our weekend in Bologna. That after our shipwreck our ship was righted again, with no outstanding leaks to seal.

“Yeah, sort of. Not urgently. There was never any prompt to bring it up again. No other misunderstanding, no eruption of anxiety. I figured it could wait until it came up naturally.”

John would do, of course. He shared the universal male horror of being told “We have to talk.”

He said, “You blamed yourself for ...”

Clearly I was supposed to fill in the blank, and I did: I groaned and covered my face with one hand. “For theorising in advance of the data.”

And hardly at all for doubting John. Unconsciously, I’d been thinking that doubting John was a rational way to proceed. Prudent, even. John was tactful, didn’t make me say it. I did, anyway.

“I should have blamed myself for doubting you.”

He didn’t answer, which was as good as saying, “Yes, _obviously_.”

“I’ve disappointed you.” Undoubtedly I had: I only understood how much, after this conversation.

“No. I mean, yes, you did back then, but it isn’t about me, really. It’s about finding an equilibrium that makes you happy. And only you can do that. It isn’t in my power to do more than—I mean, I can only control how I behave, not how you feel. If you keep thinking that I just haven’t yet met the person I’m going to want to leave you for, then nothing I do or don’t do is going to reassure you permanently.”

Nothing about this discussion had been comfortable, but “it lies in you” was especially disconcerting. He seemed to have finished, so I just said, “I'll try to remember that. How about getting some sleep?”

The fireworks—waterworks?—in the shower that morning felt like a long time ago. We both felt more like curling up together than anything more vigorous, so we slotted ourselves into our favorite position for going to sleep. As I was nearly drifting off, though, John’s voice came out of the darkness:

“Do you remember, the first nights we spent together, that you asked me what would happen if this didn’t last?”

I did, indeed. What if the bliss of lovemaking, of being together, didn’t last, simply because there was no longer an obstacle to it? In the middle of the night I’d asked him, “What’s more fatal to desire than satisfaction?”

John had been similarly gentle with me then, asking me to give it a chance. To give it time. We’d never revisited the subject.

“I remember.” I moved my hand to his sternum and rubbed slowly.

“What do you think now?”

No hesitation. “I think I was an idiot.”

He huffed a silent laugh. “Yeah. Good. Me too.”

And that was that. Within minutes his breathing had slowed and deepened into sleep, while I lay awake a bit longer and thought about our two intense moments of communion that day. Strangely bipartite: lovemaking, and talking. I wondered how much of both was down to our encounter with Roberto.

“Body and mind, heart and soul.” All those dimensions I used to think were separable components, John knew to be inextricable. And he loved them inextricably; and I was learning to.

Our hearts are indeed drawn to stars; but not only to the ones which want us not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is life's sorrow:  
> That one can be happy only where two are;  
> And that our hearts are drawn to stars  
> Which want us not.”
> 
> Edgar Lee Masters, “Herbert Marshall,”  
>  _Spoon River Anthology_ (1915)
> 
> Chapter titles all from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , Act II, scene 1. This title is the first line of Oberon's response to Titania's monologue.
> 
> Once again: my most grateful thanks to beta and britpicker, who save me from myself so often they really deserve titles more like guardian angel.


	6. That rheumatic diseases do abound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hilltowns are different in Sicily; they don’t dominate the height, but cling limpet-like to the hillside. We stopped to photograph several, their terraced layers stepping gingerly downhill like the cascading open drawers of Mummy's tiered jewel-box that always lured me as a child.
> 
> “I love how they work with the topography here,” he said. “The buildings and the landscape enhance each other.”
> 
> _Oh, John, wait until you see Roccascalegna, in Abruzzo. The Cascata delle Marmore, in Umbria. Wait till you see the Pantheon._

**9–14 February 2020**

It seemed I had seriously underestimated therapy. I’ve always dismissed it, or resisted it, and only pretended to cooperate; I’ve never met a therapist that didn’t bore me within a few minutes. They don’t keep up with me mentally, and I don’t share my emotions with strangers, so the entire enterprise has always seemed destined to fail. But the previous night’s conversation with John gave me occasion to re-evaluate.

Even at one remove, therapy gave me a great deal to think about, and much that was reassuring. I don’t have to control the rest of the world’s inhabitants, or ward off prospective bids for John’s attention. I don’t have to monitor his interactions. I just have to trust _him_.

And I did trust him, unhesitatingly, with my life. It was time to trust him unreservedly with my heart, as well.

* * * * *

“John! You’re a _genius_!”

“Oh, good. I always thought I was. —Why am I, again?”

“We’re not five minutes from the scene of a _fascinating_ crime. We have to see it, John! I want to see it!”

“Yes, I knew you would, so I phoned ahead.” 

“You _did_? I never—”

“No, you berk. But we’ll see it, if it’s open. What is it, anyway?”

* * * * *

It’s probably a bad husband who inserts a work obsession into a honeymoon plan, but the opportunity was as irresistible as it was unplanned.

I’d studied the Oratory of St Lawrence, interior and exterior, in all the detail available online. Layout. Architectural history. Restoration. Decoration. Iconography. But nothing actually replaces physical presence. Outside, the building is an exuberant hybrid of styles, and its façade commanded my interest for several minutes. Not only pragmatically, in terms of the theft of the Caravaggio, but artistically.

We entered. In the fifty years since the theft I detected only two material changes in the Oratorio: the stuccoes and decorative elements that covered the walls had been restored to a pristine state; and the stolen altar painting had been replaced with an authorised digital copy. The interior was now a sea of blinding white, enhanced by a few elements picked out in gilt and by the dramatic intarsia marble floor. A thousand crystals in the metal chandelier. The sensory assault was overwhelming: how did a religion predicated on poverty generate so much _opulence_?

I put on my sunglasses and the distractions fell away: dimming the brightness let me see the larger structures and the volumes, run sight-lines, measure distances, run hypotheses on entrance and escape points. The original investigators were naturally fifty years behind current methods, and I was hopeful of discerning something new about the theft of the painting, one of the ten great unsolved art crimes of the twentieth century.

I took off my glasses again to stare at the reproduction. Caravaggio’s 1600 _Nativity with St Lawrence and St Francis_ was in some ways a classic nativity scene, in others pure Caravaggio and no one else. Standard: the Angel announcing the birth to the shepherds; Mary, Jesus, and Joseph; the ox and ass; an attendant shepherd; the two saints framing and observing the scene, their impossible presence in the picture plane representing both their contemplation of the scene and their proximity to Christ. Ubiquitous in Christian art.

But the Caravaggio signatures: the bizarre angle of the announcing angel, hovering torqued and foreshortened above the human figures, as though heaven itself were spilling onto earth. The emphatic _chiaroscuro_ , the dark scene with bright accents seeming to come from a single, realistic light source.

The painted light, illuminating details and fragments chosen more for visual verisimilitude than for symbolic importance (the back of Joseph’s head; the infant’s forehead, chest, right cheek and arm). The telescoping of time: the annunciation to the shepherds; the visit of the shepherds; the lives of the two saints centuries later and a millennium apart; the moment the painting was created, in 1600; and of course, the replication of the painting after its excision.

Which of the various Mafia figures who claimed to have stolen the painting had really done it? Did it survive its (doubtless violent) removal from its frame? Where it was hidden, did it survive the earthquake of 1980? Did it survive careless treatment or storage by its captors? Did it survive at all?

It struck me that I was thinking of the painting as the victim of a ransom kidnapping, a _sequestro di persona_ —indeed _as_ a person, with a life it may have lost. Was it still in Sicily, or even in Italy at all? Or had it gone underground into the illicit collection of someone wealthy, lost to the whole of humanity to whom it really belonged?

* * * * *

Beside me, I felt John stir. I rolled my shoulders and winced; my back was stiff, too. “How long’ve I been standing here?”

“Not that long. You flung around quite—er—”

“Freakishly?” I should resign myself. John was going to put on his fond and indulgent voice, thus confirming that I am indeed impossibly eccentric.

“Fr—frenetically, rather, I’d say. For a quarter of an hour. Muttering. No way to take notes for you, so I hope you’ve recorded it” (tapping his brow in shorthand). “Then you stopped here, to stare at the painting. For—eleven minutes. I stared with you.”

I stared at _him_. He hadn’t taken that tone of kindly tolerance I’d expected he would, after observing such a familiar fugue state; he didn’t sound quizzical or amused at my inability to pass for normal. 

Instead he sounded impressed. Awed, even. After all these years John still seemed to see my oddities as _amazing_ , _fantastic_ , like the first night in Lauriston Gardens.

I dropped into a shaky and uncomfortable chair; he joined me, more composedly. Raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

“Either we stay here for three days, or we have to come back.” I ventured a sidelong glance.

He was smiling. “Is it ungracious to say that we’re on our honeymoon and I don’t want to spend it watching you in a trance, or seeing Palermo alone?”

“Perfectly fair. We’ll come back.”

“This summer?” A hopeful lilt; John’s always loved the heat.

“Nope. Far too hot. And we promised Watson France. Brittany. Crêpes. Swimming. Giant pink granite boulders. Cidre. Kouign amann.”

He sighed. Neither Brittany nor its waters were known for heat, even in high summer.

“What’s the fascination with this cold case?”

“I have a—” (I hate the word) “hunch.”

“Which you’re not going to share yet,” he said, unperturbed.

“Not before I have more data.”

“The Mafia, wasn’t it? Would you like to do more of that kind of investigating?” He sounded honestly curious, not as though he were tiptoeing around the subject of Roberto.

“God, no. It’s dull. Banal. Motive’s always the same. Modality’s always the same. Roberto works on those kinds of cases. —Not art thefts; that’s a special unit of the Carabinieri, another branch of service. Anyway, Mafia crimes aren’t just dull, they’re squalid. The worst of human behaviour: primacy through violence and intimidation, and a conspiracy of silence to cover it all up. Simplistic and horrible.”

For years I never mentioned Roberto if I could help it. After our conversations, it was time to normalise it. It was insulting to John to think I had to avoid it.

* * * * *

In the small space our voices weren’t even discreet, let alone hushed and reverent, and the woman sitting behind us couldn’t help but overhear.

“You’re interested in art thefts?” She spoke to us both, in excellent English and with an accent both slight and crisp.

She was shorter than John, about our age, calm and poised. Thick chestnut hair cut straight at the jawline. A closed-mouth smile turned up at the corners in secret amusement. Deep green eyes, round-framed glasses. The effortlessly classic look Italian professional women pull off without frills or fussiness, but (less typically) no makeup at all. _Married, one child—a daughter, not yet adolescent. No pets. From Milan._

I answered for us. “Yes, some of them. The interesting ones.”

“You should visit Milan. Major theft from the—”

“Galleria d’Arte Moderna, of course! Twenty-eight paintings, and then thirty-five a few months later!”

She winced; I must’ve sounded too enthusiastic. “Yes. Six years after this one. But more than just that. There’s so much to see in Milan, it isn’t just commerce and fashion. It doesn’t get the credit it deserves.”

John intervened, smiling cordially. Not everyone has the gift of addressing a stranger with discretion and warmth, and I could tell he found her as winning as I did.

“Thank you, we will. I’ve always wanted to see the Milan cathedral.”

Her own smile broadened. “It _is_ magnificent. Unique. But there’s so much more, and so much to see that not many tourists visit. In the winter, Sicily is nicer, of course. But spring or fall—go to Milano.”

She gave a brisk nod as though to end the conversation, and stood to shoulder her bag. John turned back to me as she left.

“She recognised you.”

“She recognised _us_.”

He shifted closer. It struck me then that it was also insulting to John, to think I had to worry about every human being of either sex just because he was, is, bisexual. I’d never given any thought to how offensive it was, my constant low-level anxiety. It was distrust, pure and simple, and he hadn’t deserved it. I could see it clearly now, just as when one leaves a foggy valley to climb above the mists to where the view is bright and clear and endless. I resolved to apologise explicitly for that, when we were alone.

We were hungry early; our breakfast in a _pasticceria_ had been lush and perfect, but small. He’d eaten a _rustico leccese_ , a savoury speciality of the Salento somehow on offer in Palermo; I’d eaten ricotta cannoli with a _granita al caffè_ , which I could easily imagine eating every day. Dessert for breakfast. Every day.

Over our _spaghetti con le sarde_ I did apologise, and he smiled ruefully.

“I was going to come back to that.” He took a forkful of thick spaghetti and his face went slack, it was so delicious.

“I’m surprised you didn’t bring it up last night, in fact. It’s so obvious, in hindsight. I’m embarrassed.” I took a sip of wine, trying to give him time to say something.

“One thing at a time. I try to pick and choose; build a sequence. Can’t cover everything in one go.” He picked up his fork again and didn’t seem to want to take it further, so I let it go with relief. 

* * * * *

What is intrinsically compelling about Palermo—about Sicily in general—is enhanced by seeing it with John.

The crossroads of the Mediterranean for almost three millennia, Palermo is a layered record of its waves of cultures, and religions, and the many languages that flowed into modern Sicilian—a language in its own right. Palermo’s names, from Cuba to Kalsa to Vucciria to Ziza, immortalise its centuries as a city of Arabic language and Muslim faith. In the Vucciria food market unintelligible sounds floated around us like snow, bright and varied and mostly empty of the semantic weight that would pull them to earth. 

John always says that not knowing Italian gives him a vision of this land mostly unmediated by the verbal. In those places where only Sicilian is heard, I had almost the same—call it advantage. Colours and contours pressed directly on my visual centers without passing through a grid of language at all, and it was like nothing so much as a mosaic before the image has properly emerged. 

John loved the sparkling gold mosaics of the Cappella Palatina. Now that we knew we’d be coming back, we decided to let the Chapel stand in for all the ancient Palermitan churches whose mosaics we would admire at leisure next time—even Monreale, that eighth wonder of the world.

We picked up our vehicle late Monday morning; John had reserved a compact yet powerful Alfa Romeo. A rather inspiring red, at that. We took the coast road east and watched in companionable silence as the water changed colours, and the air over the sea shimmered with curtains of rain and then cleared again with an intermittent breeze. The sun glistened on the wavelets and even in February, I was glad of my sunglasses, which helped me negotiate the curves with a flair even John must appreciate. 

Or not.

“Do you drive this way at home?” he gasped, clutching at the dash with melodrama.

“Not with Watson in the car.” I grinned.

Cefalù has a cathedral people millions visit each year, and it is dwarfed by the mammoth limestone crag just behind it. Not even three hundred metres but it seems much higher, towering over the cathedral. I don’t love this little town, despite its beauties; it has so wholly accommodated English- and German-speaking tourism that John felt condescended to, and I longed for the privilege of not understanding anything at all. But it was a pleasant enough interlude, and the two-mile walk up the Rocca and back was not only stunning but strategic, after so much sitting and eating. Good thing it was winter.

“We could never walk up here in the summer, we’d have sunstroke or a heart attack.”

“Happy thought,” he answered drily.

Tuesday morning we drove inland, south into the Madonie Mountains, a wild natural park a fraction the size of the Lake District but with peaks twice as high. After the minute glinting tiles of mosaics, the vast and solemn sweep of mountain landscape was almost unbalancing but entirely, deeply welcome. We drove the tiny roads marked in green as picturesque on the map, and I remembered to drive on the right. Mostly. The scenery _was_ distracting.

“Stop complaining, John. You get to enjoy the view without having to concentrate on driving.”

“So do you, apparently, I don’t call that concentrating. —There, that’s my last blond hair gone grey.”

I laughed from sheer happiness.

Hilltowns are different in Sicily; they don’t dominate the height, but cling limpet-like to the slopes. We stopped to photograph several, their terraced layers stepping gingerly down the hillside like the cascading open drawers of Mummy’s tiered jewel-box that always lured me as a child.

“I love how they work with the topography here,” he said. “The buildings and the landscape enhance each other. Venice and the water. Cefalù and that hunk of rock.”

_Oh, John. Wait until you see Roccascalegna, in Abruzzo. The Cascata delle Marmore, in Umbria. Wait till you see the Pantheon._

  
  


* * * * *

**11 February**

We slept in a little town at the southern border of the park, and ate roasted artichokes so mouthwatering I ordered a second serving.

Just before bed, Mycroft texted me on the encrypted mobile we used only to communicate with each other.

_— How is Sicily?_

Of course he knew where we were, the incorrigible snoop.

_— Illuminating. We’ll be home a day late, btw._

_— Why?_

_— We lost a day getting here._

_— An evening. Re delaying your return: please don’t._

My heart sped up.

_— Watson? Parents?_

_— No. All are well. Global concern gathering, though._

_— Immediate danger?_

_— No. Just get back to London._

_— What is it, fgs?_

_— Contagion. Take normal precautions and fly back as originally planned._

_— What are normal precautions?_

_— Ask your husband. I understand he’s a doctor._

I ground my teeth and roared, “MYCROFT!” as though the secretive ass could hear me.

John looked up, startled, from his book. “God, what is it?”

“We should fly back to London tomorrow after all. Mycroft warns of an imminent epidemic.”

John pushed himself out of his chair. “Give me that.”

Before he’d even got the words out, though, he’d already grabbed the phone. I read over his shoulder.

— _John here. What kind of epidemic?_

— _Virus. Novel SARS._

— _Been seeing something about that_

— _Batten down the hatches. The mother of all storms is coming._

Dear God, for Mycroft to type something like that—he had to be seriously off-balance.

— _We’ll leave tomorrow. From Palermo or Catania_

— _Let me know if you need assistance._

— _Will do_

John threw the phone on the bed and opened his laptop. “In the morning we’ll drive toward Caltanissetta, as we planned, then either head back north to Palermo, or pick up the A19 east direct to Catania. With luck we can get a flight to London tomorrow.”

Ten minutes later we had tickets from Catania to Gatwick. We wouldn’t be comfortable until we’d got back to Watson, and could work out how to shield her from whatever this was. If an epidemic was going to burn through London, we were going to need all the planning time and information we could get. Neither of us slept more than a couple of hours that night.

* * * * *

**14 February 2020**

_John. When you did me the honour of marrying me, you wrote me vows. Private ones, just between us._

_It took me some time to write my own. Not because I didn’t know what I wanted to promise; because I never stop learning from you. Whenever I think we are home free, that's when I realise how very much I have yet to learn._

_If after the honeymoon is too late to give you my wedding vows, I’m sorry; but one of the most fundamental promises I must make, I understood only in Sicily._

_I can’t hope to equal your letter, but this is the best I can do._

_I promise to be the best husband I know how to be, and to learn to be an even better one. I have an excellent example before me and will try to benefit from it._

_I will do everything in my power to give our daughter a happy childhood, if an unconventional one. I promise this to you and to her mother. Our work will be tailored to minimise the danger that Watson will ever be bereft of another parent._

_I swear on everything and everyone I hold dear that I will never again go off alone and risk my life without your knowledge; and especially, never so much as hint that it is “for your own good.” If you have forgiven me for having pretended to die, it is much more than I deserve; I will never again make the mistake of thinking you are better off alive without me._

_Everything I feel for you has still not kept me from sometimes underrating the areas in which I fall short and you, by contrast, excel. I promise to finally, once and for all, stop underestimating your abilities simply because I lack them myself._

_I promise to keep taking you away for time alone together. Where and when you like. Your record is unblemished, and we are stronger and happier for it._

_Last but not least: I will not give in to jealousy and suspicion, because you deserve better than that. You said you know what you want; knowing what that is, I will not insult you by doubting it or you again._

_Given my nature, this is a difficult promise for me to make and to keep, but I understand now that it is non-negotiable. I cannot make it your responsibility to keep me from feeling uneasy or insecure._

_Somehow I’ve made this letter sound a bit grim, and my commitments a bit too much like work—hardly the tone of our daily life together. So I’ll close with vows that sound more like us. I promise to surprise you regularly, with the caveat that adventure and the unexpected cannot always be delightful. To keep you in_ _excellent_ _physical condition, by fair means and foul. And to show you—in public and in private—that it’s always you, John Watson, from the day we met and for the rest of our lives.  
_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ends this little sequel, friends, the bookend to _Teach Your Children Well_. My homage as always to the generosity of beta HubbleGleeFlower and britpicker 7PercentSolution.
> 
> The conceit that jealousy is ruinous not only to a marriage but indeed to the whole "mazèd world," comes from Titania's reproach to Oberon, which ends:
> 
> "And this same progeny of evils comes  
> From our debate, from our dissension;  
> We are their parents and original."
> 
> At some point spouses must decide to trust. It isn't an easy decision, but it sure beats the alternative. 
> 
> In the next sequel, which 7PercentSolution does me the honor to cowrite with me, Sherlock and Roberto will reunite to work on a case. And John? His Olympian calm? We'll see. 
> 
> Subscribe to me, 7PercentSolution, and/or the series _Drawn to Stars_ to get notifications from AO3. Thank you for coming along--thank you for your precious comments, all of which I cherish--and thank you for any and all fic recs you share in the comments box!
> 
> The mother of all storms (the phrase was a gift from 7Percent) has picked up again with a vengeance. My heart is again breaking for "the countless dead, ah me, the countless, countless dead." _Stay well, everyone._


End file.
